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Gauntlet for the Left Hand

A work made of steel, gold, silver, and brass.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of steel, gold, silver, and brass.

Date:

1575/90

Artist:

Lucio Piccinino (Italian, active 1575-1595)
Milan

About this artwork

Intended purely for spectacle, parade armor represented the pinnacle of the armorer’s art. This fragmentary gauntlet for the right hand was part of such a harness. The workshop of Lucio Piccinino produced several similar commissions for various dukes and princes of the Habsburg court. The work of several craftsmen, this gauntlet merges the arts of armoring and goldsmithing. Here the technique of gold-and-silver overlay is combined with embossing—pushing the thin steel from both inside and out. With its riot of classical ornament, including grotesque figures, fruit garlands, and trophies of arms, the decoration reflects the prevailing artistic taste, known as Mannerism, at the end of the 16th century.

Status

On View, Gallery 239

Department

Applied Arts of Europe

Artist

Lucio Piccinino

Title

Gauntlet for the Left Hand

Place

Milan (Object made for)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1565–1600

Medium

Steel, gold, silver, and brass

Dimensions

16.5 × 14.6 × 19.7 cm (6 1/2 × 5 3/4 × 7 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

George F. Harding Collection

Reference Number

1982.2648

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/116446/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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